For once I can use the phrase “a true page turner” with utter conviction. And happily add the clumsier “unputdownable”. This novel fully merits both descriptions. And though I am not one of those speed readers who can zip through a book in a single session, I was close to achieving that feat on this occasion. It grips, intrigues and enthrals. Fittingly it cannot be neatly slotted into any one genre – certainly not basic crime fiction, although a crime is committed (or is it?) and there is a shadowy detective hovering in the background keeping a watchful eye on… Continue reading

An update. After a bad case of  writer’s block we find our sleuth taking an uneasy interlude over coffee and cake. A brief extract from book #6, as yet untitled, in the ongoing series of crime fiction featuring Bromo Perkins. FINDING the way to Grains, Beans and Leaves needed no help from… Continue reading

A few paces on and he stopped at the entrance where he had seen the skinny youth enter and emerge. The sign was in full view, Skippers Ope. One skipper or many, he mused; something only a relentless pedant would worry about. Daylight was fading. The ope was an unlit… Continue reading

Uninvited, but more welcome than a cold shower on a stinking hot day in Melbourne, my muse has reappeared. As usual, she came from nowhere and without a prompt. I was merely taking s stroll (or perhaps I should say ‘we’) to combat inertia, mental as well as physical. And… Continue reading

My first tentative venture into crime fiction occurred many years, even decades, ago. As tends to be my way of doing things, I started writing and let the characters lead me. Chief among them was a mild and insignificant denizen of suburban life, Garfield Parks. Why he was called that, I have no idea; that back story had yet to be discovered and written. Then other things intervened: work, business, life and love among them. Garfield and his troubles were set aside for another time – one that never arrived. Fortunately I did at least transcribe this hand-written tale from… Continue reading